The muscle-bound Swedish screen icon Dolph Lundgren, who rose to fame as boxer Ivan Drago in Rocky IV and held the title role in The Punisher, makes his sophomore directorial effort with the straight-to-video actioner The Russian Specialist (aka The Mechanik), a U.S./German co-production. Nick Cherenko (Lundgren), a Soviet Special Forces agent living and working in Russia, must flee the country when bloodthirsty gangsters massacre his wife and child. On the lam with his safety on the line, Cherenko escapes to Los Angeles, where he slips into a quiet, nonchalant life as an auto mechanic -- that is, until he is offered a massive amount of blood money to hunt down a kidnapper who abducted a young Russian heiress and to bring the girl back to the arms of her parents unscathed. Cherenko refuses -- until he discovers, by wild coincidence, that the kidnapper is the same Mafioso who rubbed out his next of kin. Packing heat, Cherenko does an about-face and hightails it to Russia to see that justice is served. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide